googles mitski lyric
by fillmoredawn
Summary: It's Christmas... Neil is coping (trying to). Andrew lends a hand. Set post-King's Men, deals with aftermath of Evermore.


It was Winter. Neil was looking out the window.

"Hey." Andrew's voice drew Neil's gaze. His firm tone bounced around the low corners of Wymack's office. "You know he's not coming, right? It's Christmas."

Something about this response startled Neil before he had time to process the words. "He's— It's _what_?"

"He's not coming."

"No, the— The other part."

Andrew crossed his arms. When Neil first met Andrew, over a year and a half ago, that glare would have sent mysterious chills down his spine. Now that he knew Andrew better, Neil accepted it as Andrew's neutral way of looking at anyone.

"It's Christmas," Andrew repeated.

"What, like— Today?" Neil grabbed the daily calendar on Wymack's desk. The post-it note style rip-off pages showed a bold "**22**." He stared at it stupidly for a moment, then turned the face to Andrew.

"Ha." Triumphant.

Andrew just rolled his eyes. The slightly kiddish gesture that lay underneath the surface aggression sent a jolt of attraction through Neil's skin. Andrew was learning to shed layers of himself. What he was doing in front of Neil was something he had never been able to do before— Not on the Exy prison courts in juvie, not on the Foxhole practice court, not in any game, not in front of anyone but Neil. He was letting his defenses down.

"Congratulations, you've shown me the day Wymack left office, nitwit."

Neil looked back at the calendar page, cradling it in his lap between two sloughs of hands. _Where were his armbands_? He reached to pull his sleeves around the distinctive handcuff scars, solidified over weeks (_two? three?_) of torture at Evermore, then reopened in the car—

_No. _He didn't want to think about that.

Something sharper, more electric than a chill, swept through him. Andrew watched his shudder, then wordlessly pulled his own sweater over his head. The shirt underneath followed midway up, and for a moment Neil's eyes were allowed to linger thirstily on the defined core underneath. _Good_. Let his hunger anchor him in this moment.

God, his mother would _so_ kill him if she were alive.

Andrew threw him the sweater with none of the force he put behind Exy balls and all of the precision. It landed in Neil's lap with a quiet _thump_ and Neil hastily began pulling it over his head. _Andrew_. It smelled like oranges and cloves. _Andrew, Andrew_.

"Let's go." Andrew started to turn towards the door, but for once Neil wasn't moved to follow. He looked instead at Wymack's empty seat, at its torn leather, taped over in the worst parts, at the slight permanent tilt back.

"Wymack," Neil said, as if that would clarify everything. To Andrew, it probably did.

"Not. Here."

Neil forced himself to suck in a breath, his lungs trembling. _Blame it on the cold_. "He was last year," Neil said desperately.

Andrew didn't grasp Neil's meaning, at least, not right away. "Last Christmas he didn't have a son."

Neil's mind swung distressingly through images of Riko's knife carving through his chest, of Tetsuji raising his cane, of every Raven on the court swinging their stick around to trip or flat-out beat Neil, of Jean's hands working dye through his stiff hair, of a woman with cruel, sharp eyes and an electric white undercut holding the tattoo gun to Neil's cheekbone. Neil didn't know how to put slashes of memory into words. He moaned aloud without meaning to.

Neil never saw him move, but suddenly Andrew was kneeling beside his chair, one palm pressed to each of Neil's knees.

"I know." Andrew's voice was a low, assuring rumble. Neil opened his mouth to breathe but found he could not. Andrew guided Neil's hand to his own chest and gave him an insistent but overwhelmingly gentle strike to the ribs. Neil's throat opened and he greedily sucked in air.

"I know," Andrew repeated. "He was here last year."

Neil reached for his own throat, at first just to feel the air passing through, but then the dull edges of his fingers sharpened to claws, and he scratched gravely at himself. Andrew guided Neil's hands into his lap, but when he released Neil attacked himself again. This time, Andrew seized his wrists and held him. A tight, pulsing squeeze made Neil gasp.

"It's in me," Neil whispered to Andrew, inches away. "It's inside me. I don't know how to get it out."

"It's an anniversary," Andrew told him. His matter-of-fact nature and his unwillingness to cave to Neil's distress made him a support post, gently holding Neil aloft. "And it's Winter. The cold makes your body… _hurt_. In new ways."

"It's _stuck_."

"No," Andrew insisted. "The seasons change. Spring always comes."

Neil didn't know if this was a newfound poeticism in Andrew or if his refusal to acknowledge the underlying trauma in the discussion was Andrew offering Neil a coping mechanism. Neil looked to the window, where frost had blurred the ceaselessly white view beyond.

"Last year— Wymack…" _Saw Nathaniel and said "Neil." Saw the monster and called him his player. Saw the fragments of a broken boy on the run and turned him into a champion_. "He was here," Neil said simply. He could never access the words he wanted.

Andrew put Neil's hands in his lap, and at last they stayed there. "I'm here, this time," he said. Then, staring at the tiled wall behind Neil's head, he continued in a dead voice, "Neil, someone is always going to be. You have… The team."

Neil's spine straightened. He looked into Andrew's eyes, and Andrew felt his gaze and looked back. Neil didn't bother to say anything else. If Andrew was saying those words, then he knew the same was meant for him.

"Neil?"

"You're here," Neil agreed. He sagged forward, giving Andrew plenty of time to move, but Andrew did not. Neil pressed his face into Andrew's waiting shoulder, stiff but welcoming all the same. When he finally did pull away, there were two damp stains in the fabric. Neil felt his eyes and with some surprised, realized they were wet. He felt like a dam had opened, just an inch, and what came tumbling out released the threat of collapse.

"Let's go home," Neil said. Andrew helped him to his feet, but he looked at the ground. "What?"

"Uh, didn't want to wait for the motor to warm up," Andrew confessed, "When I realized you were gone."

Neil frowned. "How did you—" For the first time he noticed Andrew's pink and runny nose, red fingers, frozen eyelashes. Amused, Neil asked, "Did you… _Run_ here?"

Andrew shoved Neil, but it was a playful gesture, and Neil felt the melting sigh sweep through him again. _Letting down his defenses_, Neil reminded himself.

"Come on," Andrew pushed open the door with a _bang!_ that reminded Neil just how strong one Andrew's shoves could really be. "I'll race you back to the tower."

"You'll lose," Neil told him honestly. Andrew shrugged. Neil paused in the doorway. The hallway that led to outside gave only a hint of the bitter cold that awaited them. "I know you know but… I'm here. Also."

He was expecting another shove, or maybe a faux-disdainful swear, but instead Andrew gave him a brilliant, intense look that said _I know_. Neil nodded.

"Let's go," he said, and together they took off into the cold.

**A/n: :) Hello yes I'm evil! Enjoy this AFTG fic whilst I continue to run from my completely mapped out Stranger Things fanfic (whoops). If you have a moment PLEASE leave me a comment, you truly have no idea how much they mean! And if you want a pic of my dog or something cute as a thank you, just specify in your review or drop me a line and I will make sure to send that to you! Happy holidayz... (the z is ironic) **


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